Fatima Ali - Savor: A Chefs Hunger for More

I t was mid-October 2018 when I got the call.

Are you familiar with Fatima Ali? my literary agent began after niceties.

I am, I told her. I just read her second essay in Bon Apptit yesterday.

Well, she wants to write a book about the time she has left, she explained. She needs a collaborator.

Yes, I answered without a pause. YesI want to be considered. Please put me forward for it.

I hadnt watched Fatima on Top Chef; I didnt know her personally and Id never tasted her food, but Id read her essays in Bon Apptit and, just like many, I admired her. In her first essay, from May 2018, Id recognized a hard-working, charismatic young woman on the cusp of coming into her ownof becomingwhen cancer callously interrupted her. As she fought the vicious disease, I inwardly applauded Fatimas stalwart grit. After reading her second essay for the magazine the day before my agent called, in which Fatima revealed that she was terminal, I was in awe of her pledge to live the rest of her abbreviated life to the fullest in the face of a literal death sentence: her vow to accomplish her bucket list against all odds in the year that she was given to live. If I could, I wanted to help this ambitious, spirited young woman to go out fighting.

I submitted some writing samples and embarked on a long-planned trip. While I was gone, Fatima was a guest on Ellen DeGeneress TV show. I watched on my laptop: a pale Fatima, on crutches but poised, conceding her diagnosis but not letting it curtail her plans. She was determined to make her last year count, to travel the world, to eat at her dream restaurants, to go on safari. Her humor and cheekiness were contagious as she gracefully, wittily volleyed back to Ellen, the professional prankster. Fatima impressed me anew.

Our appreciation must have been mutual, because our agents facilitated a conversation. Over Skype, she and her brother, Mohammad, reiterated the proposition: to write a bucket list book based on her dream travel and meals. I encouraged her to journal, to write down anythingwords, fragments, memories, recipes, smells, listswhatever felt too important to forget, and I offered a few memoir suggestions for her to read while they sorted out the specifics. Mohammad and I mostly glossed over the details of where and when the project might begin, other than that they hoped to start on it as soon as possible, and we said our goodbyes.

In late November, I learned that Fatima had chosen me as her collaborator. The plan was for me to record the reflections of an intrepid young woman living as best she could for what would be the last year of her life. Id write down what she saw, heard, tasted, and felt so that she could simply be in the moment, for the moments she had left. She mentioned wanting to go to Noma in Copenhagen, Chef Rene Redzepis nature-driven temple of New Nordic gastronomy, and Osteria Francescana, Chef Massimo Botturas storied jewel in Modena, Italy, which I longed to visit as well. What, I asked myself, will I see with this stranger? What might I learn from this impermanent life force?

I returned home to New York and awaited my marching orders, but a week passed, then two, and none came. Several days before Christmas, Mohammad called from Los Angeles and explained: Fatimas condition had deteriorated rapidly and she was in constant, harrowing agony. She was about to undergo a procedure that would help her better manage the pain, and he wanted to give her a few days to recuperate before we began our work together. We decided I should join them right after the holidays. The parameters were rapidly changing.

I flew to Los Angeles on January 3, 2019, concerned and nervous, feeling ill-equipped for whatever lay ahead. Id never written a book before. Id never written a book with a dying woman. Already this hardly resembled the poignant but delectable voyaging that Id signed up for. How could we make Fatimas book come to life from a hospital room in Santa Monica?

Upon my arrival, I was met by a hollow-eyed family with faces worn down by preemptive grief, still playing at being strong for the woman in room 435 of UCLA Medical Centers Cancer Ward. My initial conversation there with Mohammad left me with a series of questions: What was I doing there? How could I best serve this woman Id never met, her family, and my assignment, the framework of which shifted hourly?

The promised year from her terminal diagnosis had been cruelly pruned to four pain-filled months. Mohammad admitted that unless something changed drastically, Fatima didnt have long. Ill confess that I considered excusing myself. What can we achieve together, I wondered, under these tortured circumstances? And with so little time left, why does she want to spend it with a stranger?

Youll see lots of people here with us, Mohammad explained, as if reading my thoughts. Fatis friends, my moms friends, our family. I dont want you to worry. Ive explained to them why youre here and they understand that what youre doing is for Fati.